GRAPHITE rough mix. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/GRAPHITE_rough_test_8_27.mp3

Pity I forgot to unmute the vocals in the bridge. Did it in about three hours start to finish.

I want to know everything that is wrong with it. These are the album takes. I'm still trying to balance vocal levels; I didn't do any automation and I know I need to (as well as some serious EQing) to balance my actual sung harmonies with the gang vox in the chorus. Chris's lead vocal is doubled throughout, though it's pretty tight and buried low in the mix; there's only a few parts where you'd even notice it was there at this point. I did three tracks of backups, two high harmonies and a low. Gang vox are nine tracks of me and the rhythm section bounced down to a stereo pair, so 27 virtual hooligans.

Lead vocal will get proper effects treatment; right now it's just severe compression (Waves 1176 into LA-2A in limit mode It's a wonder there's any dynamic swing on the meters at all!) and parallel distortion with Decapitator and a bit of Echoboy for... something.

Waves MPX Master Tape and SSL G Channel on every goddamn track. I'm experimenting with the Softube version of TubeTech's CL1 compressor on the bass. The DI track I ran through Pedalboard in Logic and something that's suppose to be some fuzz pedal I haven't quite sorted out. I may reamp it through the OCD, 'cause that's good times. Fairly certain it's the Jazz and not the Musicman here, but it's played with a pick. Think I sidechained it too severely to the kick.

I used Flux Stereo Tool on the bus for the drum room, which sounded awesome when I could still hear the room on the drums. I think I threw it on the rhythm guitars to get them out of the way of the main synth.

The raw drum sound, by way of comparison: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/GRAPHITE_drums_20mics_chunk.mp3

The snare sounds much better and tighter now than before.

Imma get real nitpicky on the vocals here, but there are really no big problems IMO, just after listening to it a few times, a couplefew things kept on making their ways to my earholes...

1. The gangvox are a little loosey, in such a way as sounds out of place to me. I think part of it is the stuttering of the sharp "c" sounds of the "c-c-oming back to you" bit? What i might try mayhap with those, is maybe go in and either fade in the background vox so that the lead vocal is the only one to show the sharp "c". Or depending on it, possibly automating an EQ on the gangvox to cut out something/dull the "c" sound. Or you could leave it as is, a little like a subtle tribute to My G-Generation or something.

(Worth noting: It may also be that after too many years playing bad hardcore, i may now be somewhat predisposed to find fault with/shy away from, gang vocals. Take all of this therefore with a grain of whatever your preferred seasoning happens to be.)

2. Actually that sharp "c" and also the sharp "g" sound is popping out in a bunch of places in the main vocal trax. Maybe an EQ thing, maybe a compression thing, maybe bofe?

3. Also you have some plosives on the main vox here and there. Like 1:52 at "Braver..."(think that's what he said?) and maybe a couple other spots.

Udderwise, the mix sounds quite good. Lots of things going on, and i always want more guitars, but i think it probably makes sense to have them where you do here.

The gang vox, I went in to see if I could physically tighten them up via edits, and my answer was "probably not". 27 virtual hooligans yelling, three to a track, doesn't make for an easy task. I can try the automation thing, though; it worked to cut some popping when we were yelling into the PA and micing that for the gang vox. Not something I usually use, so I'm not horribly experienced making sense of it. I appreciate the suggestion here though; I would like the choruses to not be, y'know, a mess?

It's probably both an EQ and compression thing. The vocals are getting spanked and are fairly sibilant sounding after all is said and done. On the real mix I'mma have to fight the plosives a fair bit. Odd, we used an SM7 and a pop filter, but there's definitely a lot of low boominess at times. I'm bouncing down stems right now to give to some DJs/electronica artists for club mixes (anyone wanna take a stab at this?) and I dumped the limiting and high shelf EQ from the vocals. Because I know they will destroy them in mastering more than I ever would. And I beat on this one harder than normal by a bit. I still... I still want to have some dynamics in there, some openness and I just can't bring myself to square-wave the thing. Thusly:

One thing I realized was critical where I fucked up here is not leaving myself enough headroom. Given the track count, even though the levels are proper modern style at a conservative -6 peak, when there's 48 tracks, it builds up. I started with the faders at 0, and given the amount of EQ/compression brutalization going on, I should start with them at -6, or -12, or hell, -18. -18 with -6 peaks gives me a ton of headroom to work with. And Logic's metering can give levels of +6; no idea how that's calibrated, so in theory that might be 32db of headroom? Like fuuuu.... I do miss the VCA trim on a real SSL for that (we used it before...). Just pulling the faders down across the (virtual) board dicked up all my levels into comps and EQs something fierce. I just wanted to get something out as a reference, so I fought it and made it work-ish.

Re: guitars, it's either them or that main synth line. The Prophet shits all over every frequency. This might be a place for severe EQ holes. I'd like them both big, but yeah, that is not gonna happen. I could mono the synth in the verse- I dumped the center guitar track; added nothing- and bring 'em out wide during the choruses? Even without the backing synths, drum machine, gang vocals... this is a fairly dense mix with a lot of big sounds that want to stay that way.

Oh, the line is "pray for their fall". Shrug, close enough. I don't care about misheard lyrics; I think having a few might actually be fun. Call it the rock traditionalist in me.

'Pray for their fall' makes much more sense in context than the 'Braver they fall' that i hoid.

Generally i don't listen to words much at all in music, and thus i am generally shit at deciphering them when i hear others' sounds, i don't practice it enough. Which is screwy/stupid/hypocritical, because i feel very strongly about my own words being just right.

Also, in my experience with the rotten little things, gangvox can't usually be edited, because it is usually only the beginnings of them that are fuckedup/offtime. The gang vocalists generally catch up with the main vocalist before the phrase is done.

Generally, for such things, someone needs to act as the 'gangvocal conductor', to signal to all involved where the start goes. That can help a lot. The other thing that can work is having literally forty people do them. Then you lose the stutters on the front because the gang vocal just becomes this solid mass. Too few distinct voices and you can make out individuals, which... kind of defeats the porpoise.

I always hated doing them. I made pretty sure that the record that i recorded with the bad hardcore band doesn't have my voice on it as a result. They were like "GANG VOCALS! YEAH!" and i was like "err. yeah, i think i need to restring and intonate my guitar in the other room? ...or something?"

Now that I think about it, I like the idea of fading them in via automation at the beginning of each line. It'll, I think, give the lead vocal some more clarity and you get the attack/aggression of it as if he were addressing a crowd and they realized that was their queue, the line they'd been waiting for. Noted!

It might work, or it might sound even weirder. It is easy enough to try out though.

The main thing though to listen for with any gangvocally shizz, is those hard consonants. Those and sibilants. Those are the big things that can make the multi-voicebeast sound too sloppy. The ke-ke-kes, ch-ch-ches, the su-su-susses. And sometimes the gh-gh-ghs.

Oooh. Again, noted; not something I'm used to using or mixing. Considering the lines are "QUIT LIVING LIKE A SLAVE!" and "COMING BACK TO YOU!" this might be a (comparative) bitch. Shrug; I'm up for it. If I didn't want a real challenge, I buggered myself mixing this record.

Undecided whether this sucks or not. It's clear and all, but I think it might be a bit bright/thin/scoopy. It sounded good at the time?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/GRAPHITE_9_17_test.mp3

This sounds better?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/GRAPHITE_pseudomaster.mp3

The new does sound clearer, but i think you are right, that it is thinner/scoopier also. There also seems to be a pronounced separation between the bass element and the rest of the noises. This might be a product of lots of EQ taking little bits out of lots of things?

A couple things things that immediately strike me as might be possibly served well by the return of (some of) their low end/lowmids: The synths, the snare. Both have sharper teeth(err... here i mean: more of a forward presence), IMO, on the pseudomaster.

There is definitely a lowend-running-wild aspect to the pseudo master, but it also has a more cohesive audio quality to it i think. The bass guitar on that mix is still very loud, maybe a little much(this might actually be most of where the lowend wildrunning perception comes from), but even with that, the low ends of the other bits seem to be connected more to each other. I know you like the idea of separating items, 'the spaces between' and whatnot, but i wonder if in rock'n'dancerock, that is something that may have you flirting with the removal of integral glue joints between things.

I dunno. I mean, take everything i hear with a grain of salt, and the knowledge that : I probably would have released this tune about the time of the first rough mix you did. I can hear the little differences (and the big ones), but i don't know if i would have the patience for the processing of them.

That pseudo master mix sounded and sounds fine to me, the only beef i can manufacture is that the bass guitar is a bit toofar toomuch.

Hmm... It's interesting seeing people's takes on things. I should send the actual unmastered mix of this one off to newholland and my metalband collaborator. (Vol's response being "I'll listen when I get home!" and still waiting on our drummer, who hates everything ever which makes him a great sounding board actually, because he will tell you when, why and where it sucks)

Chris from Garda prefers the mix without the mastering shizzle on it. And so does his wife, who is not a rock musician (her music background being theatre; I think she can play the piano?) (Decapitator on the Ampex input channel setting, two Waves EQs and a limiter that I never really decided if I like or not.

Open them up in a wave editor and it's interesting. The actual mix before I halfass-mastered it is not a waveform you see on rock records anymore. There is one clipped whatnot, a snare hit on the last chorus out. Full dynamics, even with all the compression. A casual observer who wouldn't know what the hell I did gravitated to the much more dynamic mix. I am trying to preserve that, to a degree. These are really unnatural sounds I'm using a lot of the time (mixed with a surprising amount of room mics in place of artificial 'verb.) but this with the exception of the drum programming during the verses is all played. I did edit the drums- the drummer's request! and he can obviously play a little, but not to the severity you'd see on like a metalcore record or something. They are one take. The bass and revised rhythm guitars are unedited takes straight through.

There's also, or I'd expect there to be, a massive hole around 200hz give-or-take either way. And a lot added around 8-10k. They're, in the grand scheme of things, fairly small boosts/cuts but I think the version I wound up using has 46 tracks, and that adds up. On the faux-master I used the ol' Pultec trick of cutting and boosting the same frequency on the very bottom, and I did boost I think 300hz (I have it saved somewhere) across the board on the mix with I think a pretty broad Q, right where I stabbed at everything.


The snare drives the thing, really, and Dan/newholland's comments via e-mail re: mix rejiggering to favor the rhythm section are astute I think.

I am going for a bit of a strange aesthetic mix re: production values here I know. Like, I'm inclined to gravitate toward dynamics and some sort of sonic realism and real acoustic spaces and live performances but I'm making synthy stompy dance-rawk where production-fuckery is part of the game?

I am a time traveler from the past. I am here from 1995.

This is, minus some vocal automation and fixing up the softer hits on the 16th note doubles (single pedal four-piece FTW! Here's to having a hell of a drummer. ) what I think we're gonna go with. The band all approves. I might take off the 2-bus comp before we send it off fer mastering? Going with Masterdisk in NYC.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/GRAPHITE_9_20.mp3

Listening back I almost want to open that snare up a tiny bit more, but damn...

Oh, btw, when I did this, I actually did start with all the faders at -18. Headroom is a wonderful thing.

I hear you on the snare but damn, it does sound fucking sweet.

I'm afraid I tl;dr'd the thread but that is the tape plugin that you put all over everything? I hear what you mean about separation. Sounds gooood.

Oh god, the whole thread's totally tl;dr. It's essentially me blogging about making a record and rambling with Chris. But yeah, that's the tape plugin and SSL channel strip plugin on everything. I'm basically emulating a pair of 24 track tape machines and a bigass SSL desk (and some fun outboard) in-the-box 'cause I have computers that'll do it. It, um, works.

It was concurred this was what we were gonna go with as it had all the clarity plus the weight. Chris From The Band listened to it yesterday over the monitors and commented that he could focus on an individual element at any given point in the song and hear what it was doing. That is the idea.

Oh, and the main guitars are DIed straight in with pedals and overdriving the input.

It has a righteous sound and surely shall allow you to succeed in smiting your enemies.


Especially if everyone in the band is in agreement on the thing. Quick, send it to the mastering before someone changes their mind!


The mastering house will most likely have it listed in their FAQ or something, what they want the audio to be like. I have seen semi-detailed instructions on a few mastering houses' websites. They generally like having a decent amount of space/dynamics to work with though, obviously.

Been catching up on this thread. Yes. This. Is. Fucking. Sweet.

We're prolly goin' with Masterdisk in NYC for the mastering through their indie artist service. At least at first. We'll see how it works out.

And thanqs!

Here's a preliminary mix of Knives: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/KNIVES_first_test.mp3

I know there's a bunch of stuff that needs work. The Prophet (doing the arpeggiator) needs serious automation. The synth bass (actually a hacked-up piano on the Kurzweil ) needs some tweaks as well. I may re-play it (don't tell ) myself. Verse guitar needs automation still, no vocals, need to make sense of the snare sound, probably do some tweaks on the drums, etc. At least it's clear.

I'm especially fond of the really long delay on the intro guitar that winds up playing a countermelody.

And no, Chris-From-The-Band's guitar is not out of tune. There is a pitchshifting modulated delay on that from his G-Major II. (There you go, Forum Chris- the G-Major doing something that isn't Greater Lead Glory. It's making an awful noise instead. Through a Diezel + Mills cab + PRS, too! )

I originally tried using Graphite as a template but I dumped that mix the next day- sounds on the tracks are totally different. This is my project for the day. Then I'm going to the symphony to see Carmina Burana.

Drums have been re-jiggered, some other random tampering has taken place:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/KNIVES_9_25_test.mp3
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/KNIVES_test_9_25_2.mp3

Without/with 2-bus processing. Definitely a more open drum sound, at least.

What kind of jiggery pokery are you applying to the snare? Sounds much better on these mixes. Are you sample replacing, or ???

Udder than that i can't say much about it without vocals, what wif the vocals being the eventual focus of these toons.

As it stands as an instrumental though, i miss the distortoguitars that used to live louder amongst the choruspeoples. Whether or not they are neccessree, prolly depends on the vocals though.

I refuse to sample replace on these tracks if it kills me. Sheer fucking arrogance. I have tracks from the best studio in the area with a fabulous drummer on a custom shop kit and the best gear to work with and reasonable deadlines. It means my utter failure as an engineer if I add samples that are not for aesthetics (see: the 909 track running throughout the song). And it's my own band.

I multed the close snare mics to another bus. One is killed with the Valley People Dynamite, one is wide-open but distorted. Toms I just re-EQed, tampered with the levels and compression settings.

Tampered with the thing some more tonight re: some of the drummer's requests. He's a hater, and haters gonna hate. I also brought in a lead vocal. There's a double, but it's like 12db down. My high harmonies and Ken The 's backups haven't come in yet. I printed the mix as the aforementioned and I were leaving Snaxodrome II and it's... It is what it is. It has 2-bus tweakery on it I should shy away from. The vocals are loud and distorted. This was sort of an accident. We put the vocals up, bounced it and left without listening.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/KNIVES_9_26_w_vox_2.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/KNIVES_44_1_mixdown_9_28.mp3

An mp3 of the last mix Ken and I did. Note that this is not "loud"; this is going straight to the mastering d00d for the compilation CD, or rather an uncompressed .wav of it is. There's a ton of headroom left for the mastering guy beyond the peaks.