I still want coloured vinyl.

Simply not enough baritone in todays modern music.

Yes.

I actually found a baritone horn at a flea market the other day. One of the valves was missing its piston and one of the others was stuck. Otherwise were it cheap enough I totally would have bought the thing just to amuse myself. Now, come to think of it, it could have been a euphonium or Bb tenor tuba; the bell projected up straight- it was actually sitting upside-down on the bell, so it wasn't a marching horn. But they're functionally the same thing.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/CONFABULATED_EDISON_10_29.mp3

Totally remixed this. Still need to sort out some of the synths, especially the intro, drop the hand percussion back in and see what the deal is with the girlvocals.

The vocals were a quick last-minute addition before the 4:10 bus took off, so they will get balanced and re-sorted.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/CON_ED_HALLOWEEN.mp3

Remixed. Fucking Bricasti impulses all up in that. Proper intro.

What colour?

Any colour you like, as long as it's black.

In all seriousness, I'd love to do vinyl. That would be ideal. If we start touring or somesuch, vinyl would happen. Right now we're at the "well-liked, award-winning local band" stage. Which is not such a shitty place to be.

What's with you Americans using the english spelling of 'colour'? Got something to prove?

Possibly.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/CON_ED_11_5.mp3

Finally managed to crawl out of my hole and work today. Left a lot of headroom, so make it loud if you listen?

Seems to be coming together nicely, eh?

Can't quite decide what to do with that screamy bit? I felt it fit a bit strangely as it was before. As it is here, maybe still a little off? The fading in and out in conjunction with the changes in pitch as it goes, almost makes it act more as a passing siren or machine than a human shout.

I like what is happening with the other mechanical type noises that run through on this mix.

I do suppose I'm obsessing a bit over some of this stuff, but it's a chance to work on- sonically at least- a pretty professional level. Does not help that in my genre I am aiming for the stars. Lucky if I hit the moon. Especially with my bastard aesthetic, with doing it all with realsounds save for the odd sample of randomshit (like here where I'm slamming my broken A string into a bitcrusher and looping it) and a drum machine track.

Does not help given my obsession with very shiny records that actually still have some vibe and balls to them.

The screamy bit I like conceptually but... I don't know. It fits as an idea? It was never intended, really, to stand on its own as just me screaming notelessly (it's actually a D apparently so I'm off as the song's in E.) The reference here is NIN's Just Like You Imagined, an instrumental with a processed wordless vocal harmony thing. The current iteration is harmonize into an E minor chord, B below middle C, E, and high G shriek above (if I have any virtues as a vocalist, it's a rough timbre, generally very good pitch and big range. My speaking voice is soft, lilting and gentle, go figure.) , with the scream blended in and a reverse-fade-in of it. The chord-harmony thing didn't come out proper though. Perhaps the notes of the thing need to come up? But I'll leave that to The Devil- he's in the details.

Okay, time to finish this bitch.

Assuming no objections from the band (they'd better respect my authority) I'd call this about as embiggened and cromulent as I'mma get it: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/01%20Confabulated%20Edison.mp3

Un-mastered; I just pushed up the fader to make it loud. It is now gigantor.

Snare sounds so tits, it is my favourite thing. But really, everything here just sounds awesome.

Aww, thanks Geoff!

Off the top of my head- my notes (yeah, I write this shit down) being at ze Snaxodrome, to get that sound:

Top mic's a 57; placement/bleed is the thing here as you want some ring on the snare without the hats and cymbals being too bad. Bottom mic on the record was a Sennheiser 441, which is a really bright big dynamic with a tight pickup pattern, but anything bright will do as thusly:

HPF and gate the hell out of the bottom mic, brutally. You just want snare snap here. Expand the top snare as necessary for bleed but still keep the ring. EQ individual channels to taste like you would on a real board. Bus the two together; it's about 2/3 top mic, maybe more. Bottom is for texture.

Now duplicate that shit and bus those together too.

The snare and aux snare busses get beat on with nasty EQs and compressors because they were asking for it. I'm using the Waves API 550B EQ- a four-band chainsaw of a thing. There are shelf boosts at 200hz and 20khz(!). Yes, 20khz boost, like 4db. It extends down into the audible range and is way cooler than trying to boost 8 or 10khz for "air"- normal high boosts sounded thin and papery in context. Mid bands were tweaked to fit.

Normal snare is nice and big and ringy and open. I'm using the Softube Valley People Dynamite for compression here; actually more as an overdrive- it's a filthbox to begin with, not a ton of gain reduction going on how it's set. Aux snare is HULK SMASH! with the aforementioned as a disgusting limiter. You know that terrible slappy wannabe-djent snare sound? Do that, but leave some low-mid heft to it. Then crush it under the iron heel of Communism (making sure to overdrive the limiter) and bring it up underneath. Blend whatever else (OHs, rooms, effect mics) to taste to suit the kit + mix. Also, there's a really cheesy '80s gated 'verb buried in there.

Basically it's just the old trick of multing the snare to another channel on the board and pounding that into submission with a compressor. The bit of overdrive helps and given the sound of a gated bottom snare mic makes it easier to get the same effect with less compression dialed in. Also, adds some balls.

Well, it turns out we lost some vocal takes, so we are heading back to re-cut them on Monday. In the meantime, I threw down a rough mix earlier for the song that needs the vocals replaced:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/ONE_OF_US_11_16_2.mp3

Actually, this one is all sortsa jacked up as my heavy guitar overdubs got corrupted- I'm supposed to be slamming a Dual Rec and a Herbert in the chorus, but that did not materialize. So for now it's the AC30, and honestly I'll probably just go SD-1 --> Pod XT --> DI on ART DMPA, pushed into warm furriness and roll with that for the fuzz texture underneath.

There's all sorts of jacked-up gating and mute automation on the drums that needs to be fixed. Given three hours from scratch it's not bad considering?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/ONE_OF_US_11_17.mp3

Leaving this be until we get the vocals done. Sounding decent-ish now; still need to re-do the heavy guitars.

Yarp, yer mixes are coming out pretty consistently nicey of late.

I don't remember if you poasted a vocal version of this one yet?

I probably won't be able to shake the Ozzy song connection my brain decided to make, until you do.

Thank you thank you. I mean realistically I can hammer these out in three hours a piece and they'll be totally presentable, and I do not have a burning desire to mix the same songs repeatedly. Thus in part why I ignore them for long periods of time. But for gearlearning and a portfolio piece I could do worse?

Re: the aforementioned... Ages ago. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/One_of_Us_demo_chunk.mp3

Much less No More Tears with the scratch vocals.

Got back on this bitch: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/PROMISE_11_20.mp3

I realized some time into it I was in fact starting from the version that has no vocal on the last verse and is missing a couple bits and pieces. The idea is there at least. I still have not donned the Producer Hat and given it some of the filigree it needs. I want to cut the drums up and make a loop out of them for the majority of the thing. Still need to make sense of the vocals- I know I'm re-cutting my backups on the chorus- and whatnot, but instrumentally I think it's pretty nice, detailed and 3d sounding.

For the truly bored, I fucked around with some mastering stuff. It... well, it's loud at any rate: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/PROMISE_11_20_mstr.mp3 Mastering is a service I do not offer recording bands...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/ONE_OF_US_THANKS.mp3

Er, well, the vocals on this are pretty ugly at the moment, but it does not sound like No More Tears.

I just need to make some sense of them production-wise. There's a conceptual thing going on here where the first and fourth verses are essentially the same thing stating the theme of the song where the second and third are a dialogue of sorts, the obedient masses saying essentially "accept/submit/obey" with the voice in the crowd, the megaphone thing echoing off the walls, first mocking them and then threatening them, telling those who will listen to stand up and fight.

Obviously what I have here re: vocal production is sorta bullshit; I comp'd down some takes, threw some effects on 'em and rolled with it. The lead vocal double is way too loud in the mix, sounds like I chorused the thing. Etc. I know it does not actually sound very good. And let's not talk about the bridge.

But many many takes of vocals were recorded, including some that were okay. Really I need to make some sense of the production here.