That effect on the guitar is excellently fucked-up. The reverb can go wherever in the chain it feels like going.

Re: the kick mic, there's always a bit of snare in there anyhow. If you're running the mics wide open I think what you'd get from the PZM is probably more useful than what you'd get from something whose normal response curve is more typical kick-mic-shaped, but that's pure conjecture on my part.

I have been much meaner on the removal of the sub bits of kicks lately. Was sort of thinking about what i want to hear, and listening to shit i like the most and sort of thinking about what i AM hearing in it. And i basically came to the conclusion that i like a kind of tight "pop" for a kick sound. I try to leave just enough of a peak in the bottom so that it will have some force to it, i don't know that looks like maybe 70hz-ish?, but i also try to cut a lot more out of it so it will not trip over the bass. And you can see the section of low mids i have been scooping out. That actually hardly makes a difference to what i hear for the kick sound in a mix, but it helps a fucktonne to clear out the space for bass and guitars.

The bass actually, i boost the piss out of almost everything from like 5hz to 160hz, with a peak around maybe 70-80hz. I want that to be just a little boomy. The kick i just want to be forcefully crisp.

That is basically my thinking too. The way i play and the way my drums sound, the bleed doesn't stick out at all. And that was definitely not the case with the CAD, which also needed such heavy EQ that the bleed sounded extra fucked and would mess with the overall EQ of the mix when the kick was in it. Much more natural sound with the PZM.

...which leads you to have to gate the kick, or at least expand the crap out of it, assuming you're not getting snare bleed bad enough that the gate's gonna let it through (all extra-crispy fried from the EQ)

The whole area from about 100-300hz has potential to cause severe lacerations in kicks and basses. Where one is, the other cannot be. As for what you actually hear in a mix, cutting out a big chunk of bottom from the kick and suddenly having the kick appear louder was a total mindfuck the first time I remember consciously doing it.

From my perspective, I prefer the bass to be holding down the really low lows anyhow. It just makes more sense to me that way. I never hear an un-miced kick drum in a room with a band throwing down the lows like a proper bass rig does.

Exactly. You will never hear a real kick in a room that pounds your skull like that. But even a bass through a small amp, can make some silly-ass low resonances happen.

And this is also why folks can get away with using SM57s on kicks, and they still sound more or less like kicks. That fucking thing rolls off hard at what, 200hz? At first glance, it would seem to be slightly more than 100% unsuited for the task. But it can work. Because the kick doesn't actually need to go that low, necessarily. [Though i would probably boost a tad in the low end with the shure if i had to use one for that. ]

And I've heard some thumpy kicks in some bigass rooms, and I'm sure you have too. That mondo rawk kick sound is a complete fabrication- not to say it's not an awesome one, but it's about as "real" a sound as the top mic on a snare (because that's exactly where I want to have my ear in relation to a snare drum! ) or, really, less so. It's purely the creation of an EQ curve, and a really weird one at that. Granted it doesn't mean I'm going to go stuffing 57s into kick drums for something other than recording rehearsal anytime soon, but still... The kick is the thing that fits conveniently into that slot in the bass somewhere.

These nerd threads are always my favorite to read. But I dig it with guitars, man. That effected trem bit is indeed some good shit.

So, i really did mean to go in and cut parts out and clean things up.

But i really did wind up doing just the opposite and adding like half a dozen more parts on top instead.

NOW WITH MORE MESS!

Oh well.

Oh shit, i just realized it is missing some parts. I will have to re-mixdown. Hang on.

I have now repaired the link directly above, to one which adequately represents the ALL of the ridiculous quantity of guitar parts that i recorded.

This has an interesting feel to it. As if it was nice and gentle and polite at one point and it suffered an unfortunate accident. Now it's all beaten up and confused. Which, frankly, is fine by me- it's more unsettling that way.

Yeah, it definitely only needs like four out of the fourteen or whatever guitar parts.

The longer i live with something though, the more things i hear over it. I haven't yet mastered any reasonable method for reducing/refining for my own sounds. Only several for greater messmakings.

If I knew what the way was, I'd tell you. But I don't, so I can't.

Though in a situation like this- think of Fascination Street. It's just that bass line over and over and over again for like seven minutes, and there's really only like two verses, no chorus, a two minute intro and huge extended jams and about four thousand guitar parts. And that was a hit, of sorts. So it can work.

Robert Smith i ain't.

Anyhow, i did decide to remove about seven or eight parts. And rejiggered the remaining to almost be feasible if played by two or three guitarists.

I don't know if it is better, or worse, or the same flavor of toomanybad.

Toomanybad Flavor.

Also: mixing on headphones again due to my sister's asleepness upstairs. Might sound fucked up.

Might have panned the guitars a bit too hard aslo.

Given that it's three AM and I'm listening on headphones as well, I think it's okay.

It seems more coherent than prior- I like it, but whether you think more coherent is better... again. It definitely feels more song-y and less random, and it still has that disjointedness to it, so the feel/mood is still there. The descending part that starts around 1:10 sounds in context almost like an organ, like a psychedelia sort of thing, until the end when its massively distorted guitar-ness is revealed.

How'd you do the end bit, anyhow? It's spiffy! Even before the guitar is thoroughly mutilated it sounds pretty out of whack. As if whatever this device is is at the end of its functional lifespan and then it just goes.

After listening to it a few more times, i think i kind of like the very first one better. I do like the change in the middle where the same chords just get played differently though. And i like the stabby chords that i currently have call-and-answering with the main guitar bit, but i don't know if they fit with what i wanted to do with the thing. The end is way too much. And in general i am still trying to cram too many parts into too small a space. Oh well, onto something else probably.

Oh, and the ending. Well there is a lot of shit there. The descending part is played by two harmonizing guitars using the same exact tone setting that is used on everything in the song, just Timmy into Crate, low gain, brightasallgetout. One of the guitars is pitchshifted up an octave, and the other is shifted up two. It is the Reaper pitchshifter, lots of artifacts.

On top of that it is some random bitcrusher vst on both, some screwy EQ(aimed to take out odd parts of the frequencies to lessen their "guitarness") and a whole bucket of limiting to muck it up a bit harder. Then another samplerate reducer/bitcrusher/fuzz sort of thing. I had all kinds of delay on the earlier versions, this one just has one medium reverb.

The crap at the very end is just automated playback rate screwingabouts. About half the time, when i don't know how to end something, i tend to want it to sound like i have just stuck my fist into a tape reel to make it stop.

Also there is a little volume automation, which you can see in the waveform.

Probably that part should go away too. It is noisy(and hence i like it), but i don't know that it belongs.

Hmm. I like the new one a little better today than i liked it yesterday. Going to leave it at that point for now.

I like the newest one, myself. I think it works, mang.

I am full of lies.

But i mean it this time.

THIS IS THE REAL FINAL MIX OF THIS ONE.

Or rather where i am going to leave it. Reduced automations and pannings a lot, to simplify everything. Added one guitar part sort of. Rejiggered the endmess more to my liking. Loudenized the tremgits because i missed them.

Still messy, but i like it okay enough this way to abandon it here.

I like the sort-of-added guitar, the harmony bit. It works. Especially because this is not a context where I usually think "harmonized lead guitar melody".

I liked the previous one as well- I suppose I like the mess more on the streamlined side- so this works for me. I'm cool with it if you are. (As if you needed my approval or something? )

Are you planning on developing any of the other bits of sonic ?