Hate the chorusguitar, but the mix and particularly the drums sound(s) spectacular. Rather like the ring on the snare that becomes apparent in the quieter sections.

Messing around more. Got a light blend of Waves Vintage Exciter on the snare top and room mic, used it previously on a few things on the Clank. recording I did. Soundin' pretty bitchin' now, I am thinking.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137 ... URTHER.mp3

Still working on the noise floor issue however. Any ideas?

If one wishes to cut noise floor issues(i don't know why one would tho ) the main things as i see them are:

1. Stay away from shitty/oddball mics. Harp mics, CB mics, telephones, etc. Make sure you are running good balanced shit with decent condition cables.

2. Make sure you know exactly what you are getting from your mics soloed(i.e. what is providing the noise.). 99% of your noise might be coming from one mic that you don't even really need in the mix at all. I often find that most of my noise is coming from an "extra" mic i just threw in to see what would happen. Far room mics, odd-placed spot mics, secondary vocal mics, whatever.

3. Record your sources as loudly as possible, meaning actual in room volume being close-ish to stage volume or just barely under. This especially for guitar overdubs and mic'ed bass cabinets. They don't have to be full tilt loud, but if you want to cut noise floor issues out, they should, IMO, be loud enough that you would feel weird/cop-anxious about recording them late at night in a residential area.

4. Be careful about applying heav-ass compression settings. If you must use a fucklot of the stuff but for some reason also wish to cut the noise down, look into automating or editing or gating/expanding the tracks that are making the most noise, so that when they are not passing actual musical signal, the noise floor will recede rather than being amplified and pushed up to the level of the loud parts.

5. Watch out for guitar/bass effects. Compression and Modulation especially can provide all kinds of extra white/grey noise, but so can delays and all kinds of other things. Listen to the amps, try them with a cable straight from the guitar into the amp, see if the noise is coming from pedals(even bypassed ones can make noise), patch cables, power supplies, etc. If the line straight in is quiet, and the effects are "necessary" then the noise will just have to be something you/the band will have to deal with hearing.

I've not a desire to remove it entirely, as it kinda makes sense with the aesthetic, but a bit less would be nice during the quiet parts where it really cuts through. I think I am getting it because I am really hammering the shit out of these mixes with an L3 Ultramaximizer, something ridiculous like 22db of limiting. Didn't kill the dynamics and made it really loud, so I figured why not. Probably gonna bring it down a bit. The more time I have set down with it however, it is feeling like less of an issue.

Also, the "analog" mode on all the plugins is off. There's some Sausage Fattener here and there that is one of the culprits. Mostly, it is the guitar having some underlying noise. Most likely from all the pedals as you mentioned, Mr. Ryan Katz was running an EHX booster and a Small Stone the whole time with a Big Muff that he engages for the Big Rawk moments.

Side note: probably gonna pull back some of the Exciter on the snare, it's getting paper-y on my laptop speakers.

A recording of another band, Wet Brain:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137 ... %20Mix.wav

Much to Chris' delight, both guitar players use chorus.

Bass is too quiet here but it bled into everything so gauging things is weird.

But holy shit, the MXL2001 that was used for tracking it sounds bonkers solo'd.

Being as you're younger and hipper and more in touch with things that are currently going on than I: is chorus cool these days?

My friends are quite into it and it seems to pop up pretty regularly in the sort of spookyhardcore/otherobscuredarkmusic these dudes are into. I would say it is to some extent, pretty cool again. Atleast, among a certain crowd.

Totally temporary and wonky mix:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137 ... 0LEADZ.mp3

Compressed as shit, but not too loud. Just a really rough mixdown with the new guitar.

Probably not actually the singer's influence at all and maybe in this day and age this will make me sound old, but...

Vocals remind me of Deftones.

That change up where it does like a triplet mode or something is really sick.

It sounds gnarly. I'm jealous of how naturale your sounds are. My shit sounds so fixed, ESPECIALLY since my drums are coming from Reason until I record real ones.

Ryan is not really a Deftones guys at all, but I can hear what you mean. He is very about the Zep and tons of other stuff, but modern alt metal is not one of those stuffs.

And thanks. I am really happy with the way the guitar tones came out. That room really does most the work for me besides the processing, but I am really happy with how everything is sitting in the mix besides some low end issues I am dealing with.

A new and probably final mix of the Wet Brain demo:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r0kluqp021dey ... 2.wav?dl=0

Sounds fucking terrifying.




New mix on one of the Shucks songs:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137 ... IX%203.wav

Getting close with this one.

Pretty fucked up way to listen to something, but everything but drums and some noise guitar is done:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137 ... 0DRUMS.wav

I actually kind of like it drumless.

I like the sound of everything that is there so far. A bit crisper and meaner than the original.

Is that thing going on at 1:42-2:05 a heavily treated voice, or one of those cool voicelike side effects stemming from a noisy way of playing the guitar?

The noiser you were referring to is a vocal going into the Garageband stock plugin with some random preset I have used many times in the past to make stupid bitcrusher effects of a few variety. This one has it's delay enabled.

I am thinking there definitely has to be drums, but I get what you are saying for a particular lo-fi stripped down aesthetic. However, I want this one to crush and smash.

Actually, Chris, would you be willing/available to possibly track drums for this? Colin was maybe gonna do it but I am thinking it'd be tight if you did it?

I could try, but these sorts of things hardly ever work out very well. I am kind of terrible at playing other people's songs. I am pretty sketch playing on my own stuff, but no one else knows what the fuck i am trying to do with them anyhow, so i get away with it.

If i don't have to go into work tomorrow i can at least give it an attempt. I wouldn't get your hopes up though. It hardly ever goes very well. And my drums rarely sound like foalks maybe expect them to. The snare in particular is tricky/abnormal.

I mean really, it does not matter much as to the tones of the instruments. It's not as if this is a particularly nice guitar tone or bass tone (or performances for that matter).

Anyways, I am excited to see what you might come up with if things work out to some degree.

Now with drums:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137 ... 0DRUMS.wav

Another cover, The Clash this time:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137 ... vocals.wav

Alex and I tracked the bass and guitar live together, then I tracked drums. We'll be getting drunk to knock out the vocals today.


I have forgot to mention it, but my friends and I's record label is doing a series of "covers comps". Vol. 1 is almost done.