I had more fun than a mean kid at church camp doing this research. I’d always admired him and have almost always owned one of his guitars. He turned out to be a lot more awesome than I’d suspected.
The presentation is here… Les Paul
The Drop-in Mix Project
Love Otis Redding… love Dock of the Bay. Every time I hear it, I sing these back up vocals so it was perfect for this project.
I used a TS-2 and recorded a total of six tracks (three parts, two takes each) which got bounced to three tracks total. Moderate to heavy compression (about 10:1) with a reverb (small hall). I also had to pitch correct some of the vocals.
If I had it to do over again (and I may during break) I’d probably try to set them back in the mix a bit more.
Best/Worst Mixes
I chose two songs from my own album for this assignment.
The Best is “Losin’” from “Wayward Soul”…
… and the Worst is “Lovely Wife”.
Don’t get me wrong, I love both these songs. But I think the second could have been mixed better. If I can ever find the damn tracks, I’ll fix it.
Classic Tracks Remix Project
I chose the Doobie Bros song “Long Train Running” mostly because I’d always performed as an acoustic jam and thought it would be a great version. I used all the tracks except the electric guitar and drum kit. As you can hear, there was plenty left over to get a fun mix.
I guess I can settle for these
#AKG414
#U47
Groovy Radical jams
So after hearing that horrible song that Helen played for us during her worst best/worst, I decided to look up that band Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. This is a song I found which is a cover of Donnie and Joe Emerson.
Notes
They may be hard to read, they’re definitely messy, I guarantee they’re confusing. These are my notes.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127288779@N02/sets/72157646560437218/
Home mix
This is a song I recorded about 5 years ago. I dont remember too much about the gear, but tell me what you think.
As far as I can recall, here’s the setup.
AKG 460, pointed at the tenth fret of the guitar
Sennheiser e835 on vocals
AKG 3000c for the room
These were bussed down to stereo on a mackie board and recorded as a single stereo track in garage band through the stereo line in on a 2009 macbook. There was a bit too much bass going in( I had a non-engineer on the board), but my brother stands by this orginial mix. This was recorded in The Boiler Room, in Port Townsend, WA at about 4 AM. It was a big wooden coffee shop that sounded amazing, but for some reason I added a very long, present reverb to this mix when I was mixing it. Tell me what you think!
Shootout!
We did a Mic shootout on the last day of class, and got to play with some reeeeeally nice stuff. Personally, the U47 just had the funk all over it. I was trying to come up with a way to describe the sound, and all I could think of was “gold”. This mic has the gold, and it really brought it home for me. I was also a huge fan of the c414, Though i have used it before so I’m a little biased. I just find it to be a very forgiving microphone when it comes to recording vocals. It has some gold as well, but not as much as that German bombshell of a microphone, the U47.
I have never been a huge fan of the U87 when Ive heard it in the studio, and up against some of these mics, i felt like it didn’t really hold. Aside from the Royer, it might be the last mic I’d choose out of this lineup to use as a general choice for recording vocals, though I’m sure some would throw me to the dogs for saying it.
The Big Thermos. I dont know much about this one. It sounded..big. It sounded nice, it had that soothing crispness too it that I love so much about the U47 and C414. When I heard Terry’s voice though it, I immediately wanted to mic up a bass cab with it. Serious chunk would ensue I’m sure.
The PPA build. This one sounded hot. I wasn’t at the board, so I don’t know we were set up trim wise, but this one sounded spicy. It had a similar goldness to it as the U47, but I think it might be a little bit brighter in the highs. sounded great though, and with a blue LED, what could go wrong?
the Royer sounded smoother than the velvet case it came in. I want two royers over a kit in a blumlein. I want a Big Thermos just outside the kick. I want a unidyne 55S on the snare. And then I want to record some drums.
I dont really remember the U47 fet specifically. We had a lot of mics up, and it was hard to pay attention. sounded good though.
Left to right we have: a Giant thermos sized microphone The TS-X(a U47/M49 modeled mic) The Royer R121 The U47 FET The C414 B-ULS The U47 The TS-2 The U87
The mic shootout!
What’s Going on?
After listening to three mixes of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?”, I decided to do some research on the original track. Here is a great read I found talking about some of the session details:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul11/articles/classic-tracks-0711.htm
They used an RCA DX77 on the kick. I don’t think I will be trying that in the advanced class next year. I would like to try to use a couple U87′s as overheads though. Even though this track featured the tube sibling to the U87, the U67, I have heard that the 87′s do very well as overheads.
enjoy the read!